Joseph Curran

A former insurance agent pleaded guilty yesterday in Prince George's County Circuit Court to defrauding and stealing about $123,000 from a retired federal employee, said Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr.Curran said Peter J. Collier, 29, a former agent for New England Life Insurance, befriended Marlin F. Spence of Laurel, who served in the Navy and worked for the Department of Defense for 38 years, and persuaded him to liquidate his investments.Curran...

Two Republican incumbents retained their seats in the House of Delegates yesterday when Baltimore County elections officials counted absentee ballots and declared Donald E. Murphy a winner in the Catonsville area and James F. Ports Jr. the victor in Parkville.Elections officials were scheduled today to continue counting about 6,300 absentee ballots to confirm the winner in the county sheriff's race. When the polls closed Tuesday night, challenger Anne K. Strasdauskas appeared to be the winner, leading incumbent Republican Norman M. Pepersack Jr. by 5,112 votes.

FRESHMAN Del. Kenneth C. Holt has an uphill fight to unseat three-term Democratic Sen. Michael J. Collins. But voters should rally behind Mr. Holt.The 47-year-old stockbroker offers more vigorous and thoughtful leadership for the 6th District, which stretches from the bay-area communities of Essex and Middle River to rural Baldwin and Kingsville and includes a sliver of southwest Harford County.As a former teacher, Mr. Collins has shown much interest in education and the environment. This is commendable.

When bartender David A. Lessner goes door to door seeking his Parkville neighbors' votes in next month's 8th District Democratic primary election, he carries a personal typewritten letter reproduced in a local copy shop."

In watering holes and community centers of the Northeast Baltimore neighborhoods known for years as Curran political country, there was applause and profound disappointment as longtime legislator Gerald J. Curran resigned from the House of Delegates yesterday."

There was a familiar face in the jury box yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court -- familiar, at least, in the legal world -- none other than Maryland's top lawyer, Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr.The 66-year-old Curran has served since Monday as foreman of a six-member jury in a civil case that pits a large insurance company, Liberty Mutual, against a Baltimore temporary employment company, Chesapeake Staffing Inc."It's a duty, but also an honor when you think about it," said Curran as he donned his raincoat and hat after court adjourned for the day in Clarence Mitchell Courthouse.

A former nursing assistant at a Chestertown nursing home has been indicted on charges of physically and sexually abusing a vulnerable adult at the home, Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr. announced yesterday.Gene Patrick Carpenter, 29, a former certified nursing assistant at the Magnolia Hall Nursing Center, is charged with two counts of intentional abuse and neglect of a vulnerable adult and sexually abusing an 84-year-old resident on Nov. 6 and Nov. 7, Curran said.He said Carpenter was indicted by a Kent County grand jury on Tuesday after two witnesses said they saw him fondle the woman.

YES, VIRGINIA, it does take a village to raise a child -- and the cops are expert witnesses, according to Maryland Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr."Where there is a mother and father and grandparents, wonderful. But there isn't always," Curran says. So the state -- recruiting partners where and when it can -- must intervene and early to help prevent delinquency.Curran's contribution is to try to find programs that work. He recently completed a statewide inventory of the best ideas. Prosecutors and police officers, PTA members and school boards, councilmen and mayors say early intervention -- from midnight basketball to tutoring -- has an impact on juvenile missteps and crime.

NAACP President Kweisi Mfume will be the featured speaker April 30 at Howard County's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, the local Democratic Party's biggest annual fund-raiser.Mfume, a five-term member of the House of Representatives from Baltimore and former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, has worked to reinvigorate the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People since he took over the presidency more than a year ago.In that time, he has erased a $3.2 million debt and launched an ambitious agenda on civil rights and other issues.

In a midterm attempt to refocus his troubled administration, Gov. Parris N. Glendening has hired Baltimore attorney Eleanor M. Carey for a newly created position as a combination political adviser, scheduler and office director.Carey, a former deputy state attorney general who ran unsuccessfully for attorney general in 1986 and 1994, will serve as Glendening's "senior counselor," with a wide range of duties in the overlapping worlds of gubernatorial policy and politics. She will begin those duties Oct. 15.The hiring is Glendening's first major response to a series of political missteps over gambling policy and fund raising that hobbled him the past few months.